Isle man jailed for Obama threat

A Hawaii man who threatened to attack President Barack Obama when he was president-elect has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Mark Miyashiro told his therapist just weeks before Obama was due to return to Hawaii for winter vacation in December that he wanted to shoot the president-elect with a slingshot, to see if he was the antichrist.

His doctor told authorities. Miyashiro allegedly made more threats when Secret Service agents interviewed and arrested him at his home in Kaneohe the next day.

Agents also confiscated a Russian SKS rifle.

U.S. District Court Judge Helen Gillmor said Friday that Miyashiro's freedom would be “;too great a risk for the entire country and the entire world.”;

Farrington Highway lanes to close at Nanakuli Avenue

Starting tomorrow, both town-bound lanes of Farrington Highway will be closed at Nanakuli Avenue as the Board of Water Supply continues work to replace an aging 24-inch water main.

Traffic will be limited to one contra-flowed town-bound and one Waianae-bound lane. The closure runs from 8:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. on weekdays. The project is expected to last 2 months.

Drivers are advised to use Haleakala Avenue while Nanakuli Avenue is closed during the project. The water board said the start of the project was delayed until after the school year ended to reduce the impact on traffic.

Nenue fish coughs up still-ticking gold watch

ELEELE, Kauai » Here's a fish tale: a 10-inch fish caught by hand off the coast of Kauai coughed up a gold watch.

Kauai resident Curt Carish says he was having a picnic Wednesday on Port Allen beach when he saw the nenue fish awkwardly swimming close to shore.

Carish says a friend of his gave him a bamboo stick and told him to get the fish.

Carish jumped into the waist-high water and hit the nenue with the stick until it went limp.

He noticed the fish had an abnormally large stomach as he threw the fish into a cooler.A friend opened the cooler minutes later to discover a gold watch next to the fish's mouth.

Carish says the watch was still ticking and keeping the correct time.

Bill would reunite veterans of WWII with their families

U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono is pushing for passage of a measure that would help reunite Filipino World War II veterans and their children.

The congresswoman says a bill introduced in Congress on Thursday would exempt the sons and daughters of Filipino World War II veterans from immigration caps.

She says the Reuniting Families Act would end lengthy separations of loved ones who have been waiting in the Philippines to come to the United States to care for their aging parents.

About 200,000 Filipinos served with American troops in World War II. About 18,000 of them are still alive, a third of whom live in Hawaii.

NEIGHBOR ISLANDS

State restricts development on Maui land

MAKENA, MAUI » More than 27,000 acres on Maui are being designated as “;important agricultural lands.”;

The state Land Use Commission unanimously approved Alexander & Baldwin's request for the designation, which restricts development on most of the land.

The company said it would waive an option to reclassify up to 15 percent of the acreage into urban use.

The lands include areas currently being used for sugar cane cultivation and other farming activity in central Maui and Makawao.

Other lands in areas Alexander & Baldwin has previously indicated an interest in developing—in Maalaea, Haliimaile and along the north shore—are not included.

County Planning Director Jeff Hunt says the county wants to see the same protection given to those areas.